Of Names
by shadowed-cat
Summary: Draco answers a question in a roundabout way that delves into the meaning of his name. Slightly Entertaining.


Draco answers a question in a roundabout way that delves deep into the meaning of his name

Of Names  

Two teens were sitting on a rock staring into Hogwarts Lake. Each boy was lost in his own thoughts. The warm weather had the two of them out of their robes and basking in the warm sun. The Slytherin was wearing a white t-shirt Hermione had brought back from Disney World, he was always complaining about it, but he wore it often.

Harry attention turned to an ant zigzagging across his foot. It seemed slightly confused. Draco couldn't tear his eyes away from tentacle that was making slight waves in the water. He was nearly hypnotized when he gave a violent shudder/shiver, nearly falling off the edge of the rock. Harry laughed at the precariously balanced blond, "What was that?"

"Salazar just slithered up my spine." As Draco rubbed at his back Harry watched the tattoo of a green snake slithered out of Draco's sleeve and wrapped itself around his forearm. The snake looked remarkably life-like for being two-dimensional.

"Why don't you have a tattoo of a dragon?"

"Dragon?" Draco asked absently, eyes already drawn to the waving tentacle.

"Yes, a dragon. Big flying lizard-like creatures that Charlie works with. Draco, Latin for dragon. You know the thing that you were named after."

Draco's ripped his eye's away from the tentacle so he could give Harry an offended glare. "I was _not_ named after those things that Charlie Weasley likes to play with." 

"Really?" Harry asked in playful disbelief. He got a haughty look in return. 

"Of course not. As you know my mother's cousin was Sirius, and my aunts were Bellatrix and Andromeda. A lot of witches and wizards are named after stars, constellations and flowers, if you had any brains what-so-ever you would realize I was named after the constellation… or the star." 

Harry smirked at Draco's tone, "And the constellation is a dragon."

Draco smirked back and gave an exaggerated sigh. "Now I must take it upon myself to educate the ignorant." The word ignorant was said in a way that made the picture of a drooling idiot who may or may not need instructions on how to breath appear. Laying back on the rock Draco took on a tone that was somewhere in-between lecturing and story telling,

"Draco is not _merely_ a dragon, —My aunt Bella was the one who named me and a normal dragon would _never_ be enough—but the Chaldean dragon Tiamat was. Tiamat was the ruler of all that was before, the Dragon of Chaos or Abyss. Tiamat's 'grandchildren' decided they wanted more than they had. They rebelled. A god named Marduk agreed to be their champion and bring down Tiamat as long as he would get the Tablets of Fate that Tiamat had. The Tablets were believed to give the owner the power to rule the universe. The Chaos Dragon created many creatures to fight against the gods –the dragon was one– but in the end Marduk split Tiamat in two. He used one-half of the hide to create the earth and the other half for the heavens.  Tiamat became the basis for the stars." Harry listened somewhat interested, he had never heard of Tiamat before.   

"The main belief now is that Tiamat was evil, a darkness that had to be overcome. But Tiamat wasn't any more evil than a normal human. The Chaos Dragon didn't even fight back against the rebels at first. It was only when Tiamat's mate was killed that the monsters were created for defense, but then again Marduk could only create humans after Tiamat had been severed, without her down fall we wouldn't be here. 

"Tiamat is still around, of course, though the Chaos Dragon is now better known as Mother Nature or Mother Earth. She shows her fury in Volcanos and bad weather, her gentleness with light breezes and soft rain. She was made into the Earth." Harry looked at Draco questioningly,

"She?" Draco grimaced, 

"Yes, I was unfortunately named after a female Ancient dragon goddess."  

Harry couldn't help but laugh, so Draco glared at him. A sudden thought made him cheer up.

"There is another story where Draco was a man-eating serpent called Azhdela… But then there are also multiple stories where Draco is a dragon who becomes slain by different dragon-slaying-heroes for some reason or another, though he was completely innocent of any wrong doing. I think Draco is also know as a hippo and crocodile somewhere."

At Harry's look the blond shrugged, "I think it was in Egypt or Arabia but I am not sure. There is another story in Greek myth where Zeus turned himself into a serpent and his nurses into bears to escape from his father who he was prophesied to dethrone…" Draco paused momentarily thinking about what he just said then shrugged and went on,

"To some Draco represents ouroboros—you know the serpent biting it's own tail—The eternal cycle-'gives death to life and life to death'. In many religions the serpent is seen as a symbol of wisdom and salvation. –So I'm well named since I am wise."

Harry snorted at the logic fallacy of the last sentence –draco = dragon, dragon=serpent, serpent=snake, snake=wise, therefore Draco is Wise or the shorter version draco=serpent serpent=snake snake=wise therefore Draco is Wise. "Sure. And why don't you have a tattoo of a dragon."

"Some Arabians called Draco Al Shinji—the great Snake." Draco offered up instead of a real answer.

 Harry rolled his eyes and said flatly, "You did not get your tattoo as a representation of your name." 

Draco shrugged, "Actually I don't remember getting Laz. My uncle was jealous that my aunt got to name me so he got the bright idea that he wanted to give me something to remember him by. He 'borrowed' me once when I was a baby and I have had Laz ever since." Draco suddenly grinned. "Father was _livid_, no matter what he tried he couldn't get Laz removed. –I was told uncle hid from him for over a year."

The aforementioned tattoo suddenly hissed, Harry looked at it then hissed back. Draco scowled at the black-haired boy, "Stop it. I hate it when you do that. I don't know what you are saying or what he is telling you about me." The Gryffindor grinned suddenly thinking of all the different ways he could annoy the pale boy,

"He only said that it was amusing seeing Lucius so frustrated, and that he can never be removed." 

Draco was still affronted, and glared at the clouds in retaliation. Harry ignored him and watched the moving snake for a moment, he had seen wizarding tattoos before, but…

"He's not a normal. He can carry on conversations, change colors at will and Pansy said he bit her once. Even _wizard_ tattoos can't talk or bite… and _how_ can a two-dimensional picture _bite_?"

"Magic." 

It was Harry's turn to glare at Draco; the blond smirked at him before shrugging. "You have to be careful with certain kinds of magic around babies a few weeks before they learn to crawl and a few days before they learn to walk. That period of time is when their inherent magic acts odd. They can't _do_ anything with it, but the magic will affect other magics around them, especially complex castings and potion brewing."

"Is that the reason your tattoo is bizarre?" 

"Just getting the tattoo would have been bad enough but my uncle had tried to make it into a protection charm as well. With the wild uncontrollable magic of a baby in the mix, Laz was the result."

Harry suddenly realized that Draco _still_ hadn't answered his original question about wanting a dragon tattoo. Getting a straight answer out of a Slytherin was a trial and a half. "So you just never thought about getting tattoo of a dragon"

The blond stretched out on the rock staring into the deep blue sky, finally when Harry was almost certain that he wasn't going to say anything the other teen spoke, 

"I tried to get a dragon tattoo once…." He said softly, Harry looked at him curious; Draco's voice turned irritated, 

"Laz ate it."  

The green snake coiled about the pale hand and wrist hissed smugly; Harry nearly fell off the rock laughing.  

_____________

I either spent too much or too little time on this, probably both.  After many four-minute segments of time…have you ever repeated a word constantly? pretty soon it just doesn't sound right or make any sense; that is what this story seems like to me.  I hope sounds better to you. 

+++ a small note: the story of Tiamat has been err…shifted a tiny bit.  

sie


End file.
